Boston’s newest music venue, The Stage at Suffolk Downs, is in the home stretch.
The outdoor performance space in East Boston kicks off the season June 16 with headlining artists boygenius, Steve Lacy and LCD Soundsystem.
Suffolk Downs, which is known for literally trotting out famous acts such as Seabiscuit, also has a track record of being home to some legendary live music. The Beatles performed there in 1966, The Jackson 5 graced the space in 1973, and among the last big acts to perform concerts at Suffolk Downs in the early aughts were Radiohead and Bjork.
Voters shut down a plan to build a casino on the site by a prior owner. After The HYM Investment Group LLC bought the former race track in 2017, it started on plans to develop the property. The group eventually partnered with The Bowery Presents, the company that owns and operates other local music venues such as The Sinclair and Roadrunner, on the Stage at Suffolk Downs. The new space can hold up to 8,500 concertgoers.
The opening event is part of the Re:SET concert series, a traveling festival that is taking its lineup — James Blake, Toro y Moi, Jamie xx, Clairo and more — to a dozen cities this summer.
The Bowery not only helped to create Re:SET, it also works with the headliners to curate the list of supporting acts for the shows. Bowery Senior Vice President Josh Bhatti said that approach allows the traveling festival to have a distinctly different vibe in every city it visits.
“To these headlining artists, it takes them out of having to necessarily play an arena or play a larger bill, they can kind of play to a good size crowd,” he said. “It’s a great way to kick off the season this year.”
The Stage is also conceptualized with the music fan in mind.
Concertgoers are encouraged to bring blankets (leave your folding chairs at home), pack a picnic, or buy food and drinks on site. The 1,500 parking spaces and proximity to public transportation by way of the Suffolk Downs MBTA station also help to make getting there not a production unto itself.
Another perk: The cultural experience doesn’t necessarily end when the music stops.
As with all The Bowery Presents’ Boston venues, 25 cents from the sale of each ticket goes toward the Shout Syndicate, a nonprofit that gives grants to support youth art projects in the city.
Ami Bennitt, director of Shout Syndicate, said it’s great that the music scene is expanding in East Boston, which will give more opportunities and jobs to local musicians.
“Bowery is really committed to being a good neighbor, I know that they're committed to youth and helping out youth arts,” she said. “It's also good to expand outside of downtown or outside of the Fenway in terms of where venues are. People will go to East Boston and maybe they'll come across some new independent restaurants that they haven't been to before or bars or shops.”
Ralph Jaccodine, a professor of music business and management at Berklee College of Music, said the new venue opening shows how strong the Boston market is for live music.
“Taylor Swift gets the front-page news, but there's a lot of clubs and a lot of bands and a lot of very successful careers that are coming out of Boston right now, which is exciting,” he said. “It's good for our economy, it's good for my Berklee students, It's good for the fans.”
Jaccodine said having a big open air performance space fills a gap in the Boston market.
“You get local food, you get local breweries, you get the spirit of Boston presented there and in a beautiful location.”
